Pythian Group

RMOUG was over last week but I haven’t got back until earlier this week and I finally managed to clean up the backlog of things I missed so I could write the conference wrap up. After the RMOUG, I went skiing with a bunch of good friends and discovered a great skiing resort of Breckenridge. This is me at the peak 8 summit:

These were great times except one day with the questionable results of an experiment to find a recipe for the perfect hangover that I and Mogens Nørgaard have conducted. Well, the science does require sacrifices…

Back to the conference…
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In light of the official Oracle acquisition of Sun, I dug out a presentation video I realize I never officially shared with either the MySQL or the Oracle community. It’s the presentation I did at the 2008 Oracle Open World conference called, “So, you want to be an Oracle ACE?” and is a good resource for anyone who wants to contribute to anything — not just Oracle or MySQL, though certainly it’s based on my experiences with contributing to MySQL.

Oracle has lots of resources for the community. While I have joked about Oracle calling its conference “Open World”, I have also experience it, and the Oracle community first-hand and second-hand — through professional contacts such as my colleagues at Pythian who work on Oracle databases, and also through personal contacts such as my mother who has been to a few Oracle conferences herself.

Like MySQL, Oracle has recognized community contributors. However, Oracle offers more tangible benefits than a photo opportunity and a physical award. Oracle has the Oracle ACE program, with 2 levels: Oracle ACE and Oracle ACE director.
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I’ve been just sending the abstracts for UKOUG 2009 Conference before the extended deadline is over and realized that I hadn’t spread those exciting news. Actually, the news spread via Twitter before I saw the official confirmation in my inbox. Well, I guess the blog post title says it all. It’s a pleasure to join this program and get engaged in its activities.

I should mention that the process actually involves the acceptance on my side and there are expectation from me such as participation in local, global and online events with Oracle and their product teams as well as participate in some OTN activities. Well, there is rather nothing I haven’t done before except maybe access to some special events where Oracle product teams share some pre-release information. Well, I surely won’t mind any additional info to satisfy my curiosity.

Finally, thanks to Francisco Munoz Alvarez for nominating me to become an Oracle ACE Director.

Now, I guess I will have to scout the internet and update all my online profiles. When is this magical Web 2.0 going to actually work?!

This is the 137th edition of Log Buffer, the weekly review of database blogs. Dave Edwards is enjoying a week off, and so as part of my plot to take over the world, I am writing this week’s Log Buffer.

First, the fun stuff: Josh Berkus tells us that the American English Translation of the Manga Guide to Databases is available in Japanese Fairies and Third Normal Form.

Then, the basics:
Giri Mandalika points to an article on Using MySQL with Java Technology. This is a basic article on how to connect, and does not go into all the wonders that Connector/J can really do. Speaking of basics, Decipher Information Systems has an article on Back to the Basics: Refreshing a Regular View Definition in SQL Server and Oracle. Chet Justice, the Oracle Nerd, writes about transactions in ORA-8177 Can’t Serialize Access For this Transaction. There is theoretical information about isolation levels that applies to all database systems. Mats Kindahl explains some transactional theory when talking about why Mixing Engines in Transactions in MySQL can get you into trouble.

It’s hard to get more basic than what data type to use for a single character Read the rest of this entry . . .

My presentation was on the first day, right after the keynote, and following my habit of reviewing the slides before the show, I spent this keynote hour one-to-one with my MacBook. I could never underestimate the importance of this review following one fiasco I had in the past when I neglected to thoroughly review the existing slides of my older presentation before presenting it.

At the beginning of the session, once again I realized that DBA audience at AUSOUG conference is relatively small percentage. On the other hand it might be Tim Hall who has stolen my DBA audience to his session about PL/SQL 11g new features. Yeah… it must have been Tim as it turned out later he is the number two speaker in Australia. ;-)

My few jokes on the initial slides were not as good as they would be with larger audience but, at least, resulted in smiles so I guess I can call it success to a certain degree. The presentation itself went well I think but I wasn’t too trilled about it and there are few places I want to change before I present it at Gold Coast. Well, live and learn. I’ve got some positive responses afterward and even a piece of photography art tagged by “excellent” courtesy to Francisco Munoz Alvarez:

I managed to fit comfortably within 45 minutes with few question during and after the presentation. It’s been traditionally very difficult for me to manage 45 minutes slot but I guess I’m getting better at it.
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Last year, I had very pleasant experience presenting at AUSOUG Conference 2007 in Melbourne. It was a long way from Canada but no regrets. Since I moved to Sydney more than a month ago, it’s much closer to travel and this year I will be presenting on both AUSOUG conferences — in Perth and at Gold Coast.

I arrived to Perth late Friday night and Saturday evening we had a very nice dinner with the bunch of Oracle ACE’s (and some of them ACE Directors). Local ACE’s were presented by Chris Muir, Connor McDonald and Penny Cookson. Tim Hall represented UK ACE’s while me being semi-local ACE from Sydney. Two of us were double agents — me and Connor are also members of OakTable Network. Seven is definitely a better number than 5 so my family brought number of lunch guests to 7. It’s been great to catch up with everyone before the start of the conference. Food was also very nice. Unfortunately, I had to hurry up at the end — my junior was falling asleep on the table as it was already close to midnight in Sydney timezone.
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